My friend bleedingpowers has this original Uniform Choice shirt Wishingwell shirt and some other gems for sale on ebay right now. The auction description is AMAZING. I love a shirt with history….even weird history.
“You’re bidding on an authentic Wishingwell Uniform Choice t-shirt from the mid 80’s, I copped this one in a trade with Anthony “Pops” Pappalardo of In My eyes fame. While I wore this shirt to many a show the story of how Anthony came into this garment is far more interesting than anything that happened in it’s tenure with me. Since Anthony is such a wordsmith and quite the hardcore journalist (his 3 sentence Twitter post on what the last Animal Collective album sounded like still angers my hipster/art friends) I asked him to recount the story himself.
I got this shirt via trade through Edward Goodlife, he was doing a crucial couch tour and stayed at 38 Calumet street before it became evil. I had a Tom Knox Police Beat shirt that he wanted and he returned to his homeland with my shirt and promised to send me a 4 sided Use Your Head shirt complete w/Drugs and Booze the way to lose on the sleeve.
As a trusting edgemin and allowed him to do so knowing that I may never see said shirt. Months past and the shirt hadn’t arrived, I was beginning to wonder if I only trusted Edward because he was straight edge and had an accent. He assured me that he had sent the shirt months ago and felt terrible about it. I believed him and assumed my shirt had been lost in the mail.
That fall I moved out of 38 Calumet street. The top 2 floors were occupied by 454 Big Block and Ten Yard Fight and the bottom floor was Big Wheel Rec HQ. In between was a puerto rican family that constantly asked us for money for damaging their things because we shook the walls playing heavy metal causing their religious articles to fall and break. We paid them a few times and never once thought that all the CDs, Records and care packages being sent to us were being stolen by them.
They had a son who was about 8 years old who was playing on the porch, normally there’s nothing remotely amusing about a latin boy playing on the porch but he was wearing a 4 sided UC shirt causing Dean Baltulonis to die of laughter, Clevo captured this moment on Polaroid film, I still have the picture.
Suddenly I had a purpose, I knew where my sought after shirt was, Edward had kept his word and I was going to reclaim this t-shirt. After a quick phone call I charged down to 38 to confront his father who had a puffy Pedro Martinez mullet. “No no…eeess no you shirrr that hee shirrr” he said before passing me onto his wife who spoke better English.
“If that’s not my shirt then how do I know what size it is, that he’s wearing it backwards and that it’s on a screen stars (maybe jerzees) t-shirt” I asked. She then pulled the most classic bad parent move, she grabbed him by the collar, discovered the tag showing it was on backwards and then beat the kid for stealing my shirt. Throwing your kid under the bus is always a good way to save face.
With that said, shirt is pretty thin due to it’s age, and has a few small pushpin sized holes in hardly conspicuous places, not at all detracting and still looks cool. The tag has long come off but rest assured this is the real deal (I’ve had and seen a few of these). Fits like a medium should and it’s so perfectly broken in your girlfriend will want to sleep in it (that’s okay though)”
